Post by Dr. T is an alien on Nov 2, 2013 22:18:29 GMT -5
I need to vent, so please forgive me for a somewhat bitter thread.
Long story short, I find myself actively disliking my stepson. I am not alone. My wife feels the same way, as do our other children. Don't get me wrong, it is not as though he has had things easy, but at this point excuses no longer work for us regarding his behavior.
The main source of problems for him? His father. I really don't get how my wife ever got into a relationship with that POS because he is a shitty excuse of a human being and pretty much always has been. While he is clever enough to try to behave like a normal human being when he first meets people that might be able to provide things he wants (which is limited to money, drugs, or sex), virtually everyone who has ever gotten to know him hates his guts as he will use you until you tire of his leaching off of you and then he will lash out at you because YOU'RE the asshole.
His siblings? Hate him as he stole from their parents so frequently that despite them saving significant retirement funds they both had trouble making ends meet in the end (they were divorced). In fact, he probably caused their mother to die early because he was stealing her medicine.
His exes? I promise you, my wife is not the only woman who dated him (remember, he can be charming at first until you figure him out) that now hate his guts. Hell, some of them tend to aim low in the men department and still find him extremely lacking.
His friends? He really doesn't have any because he has either cheated them all out of money or drugs or has stolen from them.
My stepson? Despite probably causing his mother to die early and definitely causing her to die penniless, my stepson is probably the one whom he has abused the most. When I first met my wife, Tony (the dad) had refused to have anything to do with his son. I cannot stress how much better my stepson would have been if that had stayed the case, but according to Tony's brother and sister their mother and father separately threatened to stop giving him money if he did not start bringing their grandson around to visit them (why he felt the need to steal from them both when they both so generously gave him tens of thousands of dollars every year is beyond me).
When he started spending time with my stepson (or more accurately, according to all involved, picked him up and let his parents visit with him while he slept or went out to party), my wife got a court order requiring him to pay child support. For the most part, he did not do so. He owed my wife nearly $10,000 by the time my stepson became a teenager. While he only paid sporadically, he did not like even that and encouraged my stepson to move in with him so that he would not have to pay child support anymore (his dad agreed to pay most of the bills if my stepson moved in with him). How did he encourage his 13 year old son to move in with him? He freely supplied him with alcohol and drugs and encouraged him to sell drugs at school. Since those were all activities we did not tolerate, he was able to sell himself as the one who actually loved my stepson for who he is rather than being the parents who wanted to oppress him. When we did not let him move in with his father (because that was just too stupid to do), he then talked my stepson into basically emotionally torturing our entire family until we gave in. While my wife and I could take it, his younger siblings, especially his sister with Asperger's, could not take it. In order to save the younger kids' sanity (and my daughter especially was seriously losing it at that point), we relented partly because they were going to live with Tony's dad who we thought would keep the worst behavior reigned in. That did not work.
Eventually my stepson got arrested for attempting sell drugs to classmates at school at the age of 15. While he only served a short period of time in juvie, it had started to change my stepson for the better. While he still preferred the freedom he had under his father, he began to see that his father was full of shit. As he began to finally stop worshiping the ground his father slithered on, his father started lashing out at him as well. By that point he had moved my stepson in with his girlfriend (who is not only the epitome of white trash but pretty much the most desperate woman I have ever met as she has ton of kids and one of drug dealing exes is dead and the other in jail) and her family. My stepson hated her for the trash she is and her kids for the trash they are becoming (one was a convicted child molester before he died, one is 18 yr old mother of two in jail for making meth, and another is facing a trial for, you guessed it, making meth). My stepson could not hide his contempt for them all (his father included), so they kicked him out. It was the start of a cycle where they kick him out and then Tony talks him into moving back in when my wife files to stop child support payments (she had to pay him support because a judge voided his balance so that he owed nothing).
Eventually my stepson started becoming close to the person we wanted him to be, basically to spite his father. The thing is that Tony spent half of my stepson's lifetime brainwashing his own son and beating him down emotionally (he basically did not want to provide anything nice so he spent years convincing his own son that he did not deserve anything nice). What would happen is that he finally decides to shun his father entirely but forgives him in short order and lets Tony get back in his head. Once that happens he manages to drag my stepson back down to his level. Why? As near as I can tell he does so because he cannot stand the notion that his son might make something of himself and be better than him, so he feels a need to batter him down. He also feels the need to convince him that we don't really love him and has told everyone that they both know that my stepson is addicted to meth (he has done things he should not but he has not done that), that he did not graduate from high school (he did not bother to attend my stepson's graduation and told others not to attend because he did not graduate), and generally tells everyone he is slime so that they will treat him as such.
This brings us to my current situation. He moved back in with us back in May. Unfortunately, the psychological damage has been done. While we understand that his father continues to be a problem (every couple of months my stepson swears he will have nothing else to do with Tony, but a few weeks later goes to visit him again and gets depressed again), his behavior is intolerable now. He is extremely rude to us much of the time, he won't get a job (he got fired from one job and walked away from a couple others and now won't even attempt to get another one), he occasionally steals money from us, will disappear for days at a time, says inflammatory things just for the hell of it including extremely racist remarks, makes messes that he doesn't clean up, eats as damned near as much as the rest of us combined, expects us to give him money all of the time despite not earning it, and "lent" my guitar to a "buddy".
He is even intolerable when he is in a good mood because he A) is extremely hyperactive, B) has no sense of personal boundaries, C) thinks it is funny when people get so irritated at him that they get pissed, and D) thinks that he is helping "toughen" his siblings by making them want to hit him over the head with a hammer. 95% of our interactions with him is negative, the drama is making my daughter's stress levels so high it affects her performance at school, distracts my wife in her own studies (she works full time while also attending nursing school), distracts me with my work (I work cancer research full time and also have a second job as an adjunct faculty member at the local community college), and generally sets us all on edge. My wife is about to have a nervous breakdown, but the problem is that if we kick him out he has no real way to support himself. He probably can't get a job because he probably can't pass a drug screen, but even then he would have to at least look for a job to get one, which so far he has not been inclined to do. His prospects currently are nothing and if we kick him out he can only go down from here. I am completely at a loss on what to do.
Long story short, I find myself actively disliking my stepson. I am not alone. My wife feels the same way, as do our other children. Don't get me wrong, it is not as though he has had things easy, but at this point excuses no longer work for us regarding his behavior.
The main source of problems for him? His father. I really don't get how my wife ever got into a relationship with that POS because he is a shitty excuse of a human being and pretty much always has been. While he is clever enough to try to behave like a normal human being when he first meets people that might be able to provide things he wants (which is limited to money, drugs, or sex), virtually everyone who has ever gotten to know him hates his guts as he will use you until you tire of his leaching off of you and then he will lash out at you because YOU'RE the asshole.
His siblings? Hate him as he stole from their parents so frequently that despite them saving significant retirement funds they both had trouble making ends meet in the end (they were divorced). In fact, he probably caused their mother to die early because he was stealing her medicine.
His exes? I promise you, my wife is not the only woman who dated him (remember, he can be charming at first until you figure him out) that now hate his guts. Hell, some of them tend to aim low in the men department and still find him extremely lacking.
His friends? He really doesn't have any because he has either cheated them all out of money or drugs or has stolen from them.
My stepson? Despite probably causing his mother to die early and definitely causing her to die penniless, my stepson is probably the one whom he has abused the most. When I first met my wife, Tony (the dad) had refused to have anything to do with his son. I cannot stress how much better my stepson would have been if that had stayed the case, but according to Tony's brother and sister their mother and father separately threatened to stop giving him money if he did not start bringing their grandson around to visit them (why he felt the need to steal from them both when they both so generously gave him tens of thousands of dollars every year is beyond me).
When he started spending time with my stepson (or more accurately, according to all involved, picked him up and let his parents visit with him while he slept or went out to party), my wife got a court order requiring him to pay child support. For the most part, he did not do so. He owed my wife nearly $10,000 by the time my stepson became a teenager. While he only paid sporadically, he did not like even that and encouraged my stepson to move in with him so that he would not have to pay child support anymore (his dad agreed to pay most of the bills if my stepson moved in with him). How did he encourage his 13 year old son to move in with him? He freely supplied him with alcohol and drugs and encouraged him to sell drugs at school. Since those were all activities we did not tolerate, he was able to sell himself as the one who actually loved my stepson for who he is rather than being the parents who wanted to oppress him. When we did not let him move in with his father (because that was just too stupid to do), he then talked my stepson into basically emotionally torturing our entire family until we gave in. While my wife and I could take it, his younger siblings, especially his sister with Asperger's, could not take it. In order to save the younger kids' sanity (and my daughter especially was seriously losing it at that point), we relented partly because they were going to live with Tony's dad who we thought would keep the worst behavior reigned in. That did not work.
Eventually my stepson got arrested for attempting sell drugs to classmates at school at the age of 15. While he only served a short period of time in juvie, it had started to change my stepson for the better. While he still preferred the freedom he had under his father, he began to see that his father was full of shit. As he began to finally stop worshiping the ground his father slithered on, his father started lashing out at him as well. By that point he had moved my stepson in with his girlfriend (who is not only the epitome of white trash but pretty much the most desperate woman I have ever met as she has ton of kids and one of drug dealing exes is dead and the other in jail) and her family. My stepson hated her for the trash she is and her kids for the trash they are becoming (one was a convicted child molester before he died, one is 18 yr old mother of two in jail for making meth, and another is facing a trial for, you guessed it, making meth). My stepson could not hide his contempt for them all (his father included), so they kicked him out. It was the start of a cycle where they kick him out and then Tony talks him into moving back in when my wife files to stop child support payments (she had to pay him support because a judge voided his balance so that he owed nothing).
Eventually my stepson started becoming close to the person we wanted him to be, basically to spite his father. The thing is that Tony spent half of my stepson's lifetime brainwashing his own son and beating him down emotionally (he basically did not want to provide anything nice so he spent years convincing his own son that he did not deserve anything nice). What would happen is that he finally decides to shun his father entirely but forgives him in short order and lets Tony get back in his head. Once that happens he manages to drag my stepson back down to his level. Why? As near as I can tell he does so because he cannot stand the notion that his son might make something of himself and be better than him, so he feels a need to batter him down. He also feels the need to convince him that we don't really love him and has told everyone that they both know that my stepson is addicted to meth (he has done things he should not but he has not done that), that he did not graduate from high school (he did not bother to attend my stepson's graduation and told others not to attend because he did not graduate), and generally tells everyone he is slime so that they will treat him as such.
This brings us to my current situation. He moved back in with us back in May. Unfortunately, the psychological damage has been done. While we understand that his father continues to be a problem (every couple of months my stepson swears he will have nothing else to do with Tony, but a few weeks later goes to visit him again and gets depressed again), his behavior is intolerable now. He is extremely rude to us much of the time, he won't get a job (he got fired from one job and walked away from a couple others and now won't even attempt to get another one), he occasionally steals money from us, will disappear for days at a time, says inflammatory things just for the hell of it including extremely racist remarks, makes messes that he doesn't clean up, eats as damned near as much as the rest of us combined, expects us to give him money all of the time despite not earning it, and "lent" my guitar to a "buddy".
He is even intolerable when he is in a good mood because he A) is extremely hyperactive, B) has no sense of personal boundaries, C) thinks it is funny when people get so irritated at him that they get pissed, and D) thinks that he is helping "toughen" his siblings by making them want to hit him over the head with a hammer. 95% of our interactions with him is negative, the drama is making my daughter's stress levels so high it affects her performance at school, distracts my wife in her own studies (she works full time while also attending nursing school), distracts me with my work (I work cancer research full time and also have a second job as an adjunct faculty member at the local community college), and generally sets us all on edge. My wife is about to have a nervous breakdown, but the problem is that if we kick him out he has no real way to support himself. He probably can't get a job because he probably can't pass a drug screen, but even then he would have to at least look for a job to get one, which so far he has not been inclined to do. His prospects currently are nothing and if we kick him out he can only go down from here. I am completely at a loss on what to do.
